Mind-Boggling

Dragutin Velickovic remains rector of the University of Belgrade! Professor Velickovic, as well as the University Council which decided to keep him in his post, secured his place in the history of the University of Belgrade as the rector who, during the longest student protest in the 160-year-long history of the University of Belgrade, did not see it fit to address his protesting students. They have been protesting on the streets of Belgrade for 55 days demanding the reinstatement of the results of the second round of local elections as well as the dismissal of the rector and student pro-rector.

Cedomir Antic, the leader of the Initiative Board of the Student Protest 1996/97, has expressed best the mood of the students who were chanting in front of the University administration building at the Student Square: Rector, go away... Rector, go away!

"We are confused and astounded by the double morality of a group of members of the Council of the University of Belgrade, who have publicly supported all demands of the Student Protest, and then during a secret vote, as the regulations on a rector's removal from office mandated, adopted a paradoxical conclusion that Dragutin Velickovic is to remain the rector of the University of Belgrade."

"Before they had made the results of the vote public - 25 members of the Council voted for the rector's removal from office, while 41 maintained that Dragutin Velickovic is to remain in that position. The vice-chairman of the Council professor Vlajko Brajic had handed in an irrevocable resignation, since, as he has stated, he was invited for talks during which he was ordered to vote in a certain manner. "I refuse to accept that members of the Council should be made to endure such pressure!"

At that session University staff criticisms were aimed at the rector and the Minister of Education for communicating with them and the students via written orders and instructions, for bringing police forces to the University, for a prevailing atmosphere of pogrom and fear. At the University members of the ruling party are persecuting the unlike-minded, while the students and professors are only defending themselves from political pressure of the ruling party. Employees of the undisciplined schools are being threatened that they will not receive their wages.

In the 160-year-long history of Belgrade University there were many strikes, protests, agitation, rebellions... However, never was a protest so massive nor has it lasted for such a long period of time. And never was there a rector who didn't try to address the students, even when he didn't agree with their demands. The rector Dragutin Velickovic, following a question as to why he failed to address the students, gives an irrational response:

"I'm unclear on that as well?! I respect the will of the students and have intimately expected that the student representatives would come to ask me, and I was prepared for a dialogue. However, they never asked. You cannot expect of a rector to appear in front of a mass of five thousand students and speak. At their rallies people spoke who had no connections to the University. There is no place for a rector at those manifestations."

Many professors of the University of Belgrade say for VREME that the overall situation at the University was never more difficult, and that at the same time the gap between the University administration on one hand and the schools and students on the other, was never wider.

Professor Dragutin Velickovic, an anonymous personality in the sphere of science, was appointed rector of the University of Belgrade by decree following an exhausting Stalinist show for the people.

As professor Dr. Zagorka Golubovic said at the Council session, the rector was chosen against the wishes of the majority of the University employees. The fear that he would primarily represent the interests of the ruling party, being one of their top officials, rather than the University ones proved to be correct. The rector as well as the BU Council have found themselves at the very center of the "crisis of obviousness". To some even the two-month-long student demonstrations don't seem to be enough for them to comprehend what is going on; the rector says that the educational process has been somewhat disrupted, the dean of the Veterinary School says that at his school classes are being held as usual and that his only problem is how to procure another 60 microscopes. Even the Minister of Education Dragoslav Mladenovic states that the University is not on strike and that classes have been officially stopped only in one school. Prior to the commencement of the session most of the professors believed that the rector's removal from office was inevitable, that not many words should be wasted on the subject and that, if the rector had style, he would hand in his resignation personally, since his role in the current dramatic events is shameful.

This University of Belgrade's Council session has only confirmed once again the thesis of Dr. Nebojsa Popov that one of the main problems is the haziness of all that is happening in society, as well as at the University. It is obvious that one part of the University is on strike and that the rector and a number of professors do not see that nor do they wish to. Confusion continues, while the students state that they shall persevere in their protest.

Students as a Bridge

Cedomir Antic, president of the Initiative Board of the student protest, otherwise a history student, has disputed the rector's insinuations with indignation, as well as those of the dean of the Veterinary School that word is of "a handful of manipulated students and children", that certain parties, groups and individuals are politically manipulating them. "We are defending our constitutional rights as a class of society. I am proud of my class of society which is defending legality in this country. When you were sending us off to war and while we were defending the country, we were of age and goo enough to go, and then you, Mr. Rector, had other stories to tell. There were political pressures, Mr. Rector, from you and your government at the schools and outside of them. We are victims of your manipulation! The protest has been going on for two months. You could have addressed us, you have been watching us while we were standing at the Plateau for two months." Cedomir Jovanovic, a member of the Initiative Board of the Student Protest, has criticized the Minister of Education Mladenovic for not having attended the meeting of the students and the representatives of the government of Serbia: "What other pressing business did you have to attend to? We are sorry you couldn't make it since you would have heard that we are ashamed that you are the Minister of Education of a corrupt and compromised ministry against which all had rebelled: the parents of elementary school pupils, high school pupils and now students. We met with the government representatives following a 20-hour-long stand-off with police cordons, since we wished to be a bridge across which Serbia would peacefully and with dignity come out of this most serious political crisis it has found itself in during recent history."